In November 2011 Lou and I took our first trip to Chicago. It was only a brief stay, 4 days in total before we flew onto New York and Philly. The flight from Manchester was supposed to be direct, but due to apparent strong jet-stream winds meant that before we had even left the ground we were told we would be diverting to JFK for refuelling. Unfortunately this meant that we were going to be a number of hours late arriving into Chicago.

However, the diversion to JFK didn’t pass without event as clearly the communication between the airline/cockpit and ground staff wasn’t up to scratch as they proceeded to start unloading our baggage. A few bangs on the window by some startled travellers and a shout from the cabin crew fortunately meant that by the time we did arrive in Chicago, at least we had our luggage!

I’ve decided to split the photos into two batches and this first set covers our departure from Manchester and first day or so in Chicago. The main set of photos can be found on my Flickr site.

Normally during half-term holiday we end up working or splitting our days off to look after the kids. This time we decided, back in August(!), to go away to Scotland and to enjoy a proper half-term holiday away from the normality of home. As it is with looking and booking holiday homes on-line there is always a little trepidation when you finally arrive at the front door, fingers crossed, that it lives up to the expectation that the pictures generated. Fortunately, the place we booked turned out to be amazing and a million times better than the pictures suggested. Whilst it was relatively close to a busy main road this was more than compensated for by having a river at the bottom of the garden and a view out across the beginning of the Grampian Mountains. The cottage was on the opposite side of the river to the closest town, but fortunately also at the bottom of the garden was a bridge. How handy!

Joining us for the first 4 days was Mr & Mrs Cakes who were also looking forward to chilling out and forgetting about the daily grind. In fact, the visitors didn’t stop there as one of Mr & Mrs Cakes good friends, a certain lead singer from the group Ladytron and her hubby also came up for a day – although to be fair they didn’t have as long a journey as they now live back north of the border. Us men went for a short bike ride on the Sunday following the Etape Caledonia route, meeting the rest of the gang in a lovely country hotel for what turned out to be a rather late lunch.

Following what turned out to be quite a hectic weekend, we spent the rest of the week enjoying the fantastic Scottish sun and blue sky, and visited a number of woodland walks and spectacular waterfalls in and around Pitlochry. The autumn colours were absolutely stunning and reminded me of my travels around New England each fall when I lived in New York. In fact, I would go as far to say that this Scottish autumn did enough
to rival the New England fall!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures and maybe if you haven’t been to Scotland in the autumn/fall they might inspire you to book a trip in the future. These pictures are only a select few, if you would like to see the rest of the set click the following link.